Short-term lettings lock in benefits of smart technology

According to recent research from Edelman Intelligence, travellers are more willing to make a reservation for short-term rentals if the property has smart home features and facilities.

An estimated 80% of leisure guests and 92% of business bookings said they would be more likely to complete a reservation if the property had smart home technologies installed. Of these, guest expressed a keen interest in smart TVs (93%), app-controlled door locks (86%) and streaming media systems (86%).

The rentals and smart home survey also found that nearly 8 in 10 guests surveyed said short-term rentals provide a superior experience than hotels do, and overall, 77% of guests believed short-term rental hosts would do anything to ensure guests had the best possible experience, compared to 53% who said the same for hotels.

As a result, it is no surprise that with the rise in popularity of room letting companies such as Airbnb and HomeAway, the report claimed that short-term renting of rooms, apartments and homes will generate $51billion in revenue globally by 2020. Therefore, it is well worth investing in connected technologies with the research indicating that 60% would pay more for a rental property with smart features.

And security looks like it could hold the key to smarter lettings.

Guests’ biggest apprehensions when it came too short-term renting were security-related with their top concerns including ‘losing the property keys’, and ‘forgetting to lock the door properly’.

This was the same for hosts whose concerns included ‘having no control over who guests share the keys with’, ‘guests forgetting to lock the door to their property’, ‘guests losing their property keys’ and ‘never knowing who comes in and out of the property’. This is why smart door locks are beneficial as they offer hosts the ability to see, speak and grant access to someone at the door, offering improved flexibility for those who are renting out their property from a distance.

The statistics referenced in this post comes from a study commissioned by August Home and produced by research firm Edelman Intelligence.